1. Field Of The Invention
The apparatus of the present invention relates to bi-folding doors. More particularly, the present invention relates to a novel assembly of a bi-folding door which allows the bi-folding doors to be broken away from the frame, swing open in the manner of a conventional door during emergency situations, and return automatically to the bi-folding door configuration.
2. General Background
In general, bi-folding doors are very useful in many areas where there is insufficient space to allow a conventional door to be swung open on a normal basis. Therefore, when a bi-folding door is utilized because of the nature of the construction, the doors when open would provide in effect, one-half of the space against the adjacent wall that would be normally occupied by a conventional door. For examples, in hospitals where bi-folding doors are very useful, were one to use a conventional door at all times in a passageway, in the construction one would have to maintain sufficient space on the adjacent wall so as to allow the conventional doors to swing open. Such an inconvenience might not provide for the fact that one could place a doorway into a room at that position in view of the fact that a conventional door would swing open into the doorway. In order to avoid this situation, bi-folding doors are commonly utilized.
However, one of the shortcomings of bi-folding doors is the fact that during emergency situations, many, if not all, state fire codes require that doors have the ability to be swung open, as with a conventional door, simply upon manual force from a person in the hallway. This is often the case when patients must be rushed out of a hallway and one cannot wait for either the electric eye of the bi-folding door or one would have insufficient space to move through the passageway, since the bi-folding door, when folded, does occupy some space in the passageway.
Applicant does have an application currently on file which provides for a bi-folding door assembly, which includes at least a pair of bi-folding doors of the type having a first end hinged to an upper frame, and a second end travelling within a slot in the frame to allow the doors to fold and unfold between open and closed positions for defining an open or closed doorway through a passage. Furthermore, the assembly would include a movable plate member for each of the bi-folding doors, positioned on the frame, and hinged along one end for moving outward from the frame. The current application addresses the change from a bi-folding door configuration to a free-swinging door configuration in a very different, and more simplified manner, including the ability of the door to return automatically to the bi-folding door configuration without having to reset any components or the like.
There have been several patents granted in the art which address bi-folding or sliding doors, the most pertinent being as follows:
______________________________________ PATENT NO. INVENTOR: TITLE: ______________________________________ 2,311,470 Ritter "Flexible Panel, Door, Or Closure" 4,387,760 Greschbach "Sliding Folding Door" 3,949,801 Sasaki "Device For Automatically Closing A Folding Door" 3,385,344 Andrews "Bi-Fold Door Structure" 3,359,594 Pastoor "Folding Closures" 3,297,077 Garbus "Folding Door Structure" 3,233,277 Hirashiki "Hinge" 3,229,751 Moorer "Folding Door Structure" 2,952,313 Stroup "Sectional Upwardly Acting Doors And Like Closures" 2,331,512 Siedschlag "Hinge" ______________________________________
Other objects of the invention will be obvious to those skilled in the art from the following description of the invention.